Summary

The panel that for more than a decade has vetted safety and ethical issues in U.S. human gene-therapy research—the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—ended its role as gatekeeper with a bang last week, grilling a researcher who had proposed a clinical trial that would inject engineered genes for the first time into normal, healthy volunteers. RAC's final act as enforcer also gave a preview of how it might handle the new role that NIH director Harold Varmus has envisioned for the committee—as a forum for debates on ethical issues.